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The Usual Generic Crap Art Style of Anime and Aku no Hana

I always see this, but lately there’s been a huge rise in people saying that anime usually is generic crap that all looks the same in order to defend the hilariously terrible Aku no Hana anime adaptation. I’m going to crush that line of thought really simply with four pictures. Imagine you’ve never seen these shows, but are an anime fan and so the idea that any drawing from Japan looks the same is out the window, and tell me – are these four images from the same show? Are two or three of them from the same show? Or, are none of them from the same show? AND NO – I did not “cherrypick” these, these are from 1, 2, 3, or possibly 4 shows that recently aired and/or are still airing and are screenshots I had taken while watching them previously;

Guess what – if you said they are from 4 different shows, you just proved my point. Anime art being generic on any level more than rarely is a stupid goddamn myth. If you picked any of those possibly being the same then you’re a dipshit, by the way.

Every series released – with some exceptions – have their own style. The only thing they share are the fact they are anime and thus feel like anime, but in terms of looks there is no way you can claim there is a generic overused crap style. Anyone who says shit like that, I promise you, is simply saying “m-m-moeshit” without saying it that way to avoid sounding like a moron – it’s got nothing to do with anime looking generic or similar to one another and all to do with them hating an entirely made-up-in-their-head “moe” style that they apparently believe every single anime uses. Which amounts, funnily enough, to about 1 anime ever – usually K-ON, which has a very unique art style that you won’t find even in KyoAni’s more recent shows.

Oh and Aku no Hana is, in one very elegant word: shit.

Anyone who claims this went for a “realistic” style can lick my fucking chode. The show looks like you were playing a very shittily made FPS and then turned the textures to lowest and the Draw Distance to fucking 10 out of 100. People’s faces phase in and out of existence, blobs in a slightly human form bounce around awkwardly. This is not realism, it’s the nightmares of a person who was born blind and has to imagine how the world looks.

Please for the love of God, click on this image. It’s animated.

This is by far one of the biggest pieces of shit ever to grace the entirety of the entertainment industry as a whole – not just anime. It’s fucking awful, I’d sooner watch all of SAO and get a subscription to WoW than watch a single second more of this utter pile of shit that looks like someone decided to not wipe their ass for a month then smeared it on a fucking live action video and threw it to the TV studio.

The pacing was shit too.

For anyone who wants to pretend that it’s only being hated on so heavily because it’s doing something different, two things; it’s not doing something new, rotoscoping has been used in anime for fucking years and there’s been full movies with fucking k.reeves in them entirely done rotoscoped that looked GREAT. This however was done pathetically bad. For the second thing – doing something “different” does not mean it’s automatically good. If I smeared my turds all over my truck and claimed it’s a new paint job – does it suddenly become a masterpiece just because it’s unusual and unique? NO – IT’S A CAR COVERED IN FECES.

I agree with the general point, albeit stated a bit too strongly on the opposing end IMO. Yet it is understandable to swing to the opposite side when faced with an argument as one-sided as a claim that anime is totally generic and overused.

One of the interesting things I’ve learned from living in Japan for over a decade is the nature of the culture, its promotion of conformity and teamwork which is somehow quite opposite of my native country (the U.S.) which emphasizes individuality and independence.

Anime is a conformist style from a conformist culture: the variation found in various anime tends to be quite subtle (though sometimes very different). Yet a lot of beauty in art is found not through wild independence, but through conformity. One could also claim that the classical artwork of the Renaissance looked “generic”, since that was during a time of masters and apprentices using similar, expensive and constrained mediums and goals. To an untrained eye looking for similarities rather than differences, one might equally go so far as to say that the work of Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo was all rather generic and looked quite similar to each other. And we could say that with even more emphasis of the engravings of the middle ages, the murals of the Egyptians, the vases of the ancient Greeks, etc.

Another thing about anime and manga is that it was really established to be an economical style. It wasn’t necessarily intended to be the most beautiful, it was intended to be consistent and practical. When mangaka and animators have to publish issues or release new episodes of their shows for their clients on a weekly basis, there’s hardly room to be using the most innovative styles. And the vast majority of studios in Japan have to operate this way, on the tightest budgets and deadlines. There are exceptions, and that’s usually when we see the greatest stylistic independence.

Anyway, to sum up all my ramblings, I would say that just because a style of art looks very similar whether we’re talking anime or impressionist paintings or Egyptian art or Ukiyo-e, it’s the subtle differences that everything has from each other that is sometimes the most beautiful expression of individual expression. To simply forge a completely separate path doesn’t necessarily take quite as much skill or dedication, as you are no longer required to play by any established rules. And “overused” is really something we can’t claim about a successful industry and business. One could say CG is “overused” in Hollywood films, and that would just be your opinion since those “generic” CG films are still churning out boatloads of money. A style in such wide demand cannot be argued as “overused”, as the only sensible definition of that would be to supply in abundance what is not in demand. Anime is still widely in demand in Japan, and surprisingly spreading in its demand across the world.

hate to say it but they do look the same, the colouring and lighting isn’t the same but they do look generic. a better example would be how male leads in most anime tend to look alike. of course we can tell they are from different shows that doesn’t mean they are any less generic.

The coloring and lighting are the only difference? Really, all the designs of the characters are the same style? Guess what – you’re a dipshit!

You’re saying they are generic, which means they all look essentially the same – you are claiming every single one of those characters is done in the same art style as the others, and that is hilarious and shows very well that you don’t understand what generic means. You are unbelievably retarded and exactly fit into the group of people I already pointed out within the post who are, well, unbelievably retarded.

Oh, oh god. Seriously? Why would you want it to look like that?! Say what you want about Kill la Kill, at least you can say that the art-style isn’t completely retarded. Is that a fucking comparison to the manga? My god, why would you choose to make that look like this monstrosity.

I agree with almost everything you said, animes don’t aways have a generic art style
and to be different is not necessarily to be good, but, one thing; the same way that “to be different is not necessarily to be good”, to be ugly is not necessarily to be bad. i watched the whole series and it is a peace of art, of course that whether you like it or not it depends on taste, but i have to say one thing, i am absolutely sure that if it had a different art style, i would never had felt the emotional impact that comes along with the story, is not pleasant to see, is not a light and relaxing experience, but if it were, it would be hard to see how deep and impacting (and revolutionary in my personal opinion) it really is.

From the title of the article I was expecting you be one of the people that are trying to defend this abomination. Thankfully I was wrong about that. There is something seriously wrong when the art style is so bad that you can barely focus on anything else in the episode. Seriously if you are trying to go for a unique and interesting art style take notes from Kemonozume or Kaiba. They both managed to do something different from the norm and it actually looked good.

Replying with this layout blows and I can’t reply to the newest comment so I gotta reply to your first again.

It’s alright, nothing’s really any different in terms of my life or situation – though I have started actively pursuing seriously writing and am working on getting published and stuff, and it seems to be going well so far. That’s a pretty big new thing in my life I suppose. It works really well with my whole hikki lifestyle and I enjoy writing so it’s pretty cool. Got lucky enough that one of my only friends that I actively talk to at all is actually doing the same thing and knows his shit really well, so he’s helping a fuck ton pushing me in the right direction and supporting/helping me with it a lot. Only even found that out because I randomly asked him a question about something I was thinking of writing wwwww.